


Ten To One (part 3 of 3)

by batyatoon



Series: Ten to One [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-13
Updated: 2011-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:54:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/pseuds/batyatoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>All images are screencaps from the Doctor Who episode <i>The Beast Below</i>, edited using ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5.</p></blockquote>





	Ten To One (part 3 of 3)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [s_k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/gifts).



When it's over, with the discredited Hammond shouted down by his former supporters and slinking off alone into the bowels of the ship, Liz Ten invites them to come back in a year for the Landing. The Doctor's seriously considering it, and sounds delighted at the prospect, and turns to ask Elizabeth how she would like that.

Elizabeth grips his arm hard enough to leave bruises, and smiles at Liz and thanks her with all the courtesy due another monarch. And says how honored she would be to witness such a momentous occasion, and how gracious Liz is to invite them, and a great many other things which the other queen, if she's half the politician she seems, will understand as a polite _no_.

And hisses in the Doctor's ear at the first possible opportunity: _Take me home._

\-----

"Is this the future you would show me?" She rounds on him the moment they step back into her bedchamber, her eyes blazing. "This monstrous fever-dream of the earth burning, and her people fleeing to live in the cold between earth and heaven, and hundreds of years passing before they may return? This obscene jape of a ship built on the back of a beast, and children growing to men aboard her, who knowing no better shall say, _this is England_? This -- this _blasphemy_?"

The Doctor takes an involuntary step back, his hands coming up as though to protect himself from a blow. She doesn't realize until she sees him do it that her fists are clenched, and for a moment she _wants_ to strike him, with her own bare hands. As that woman Liz Ten would do, no doubt --

"I will not have it." The words ring from the walls, and without even thinking about it she lowers her voice. "Hear me, Doctor, for I will not have it so. England to perish from this good earth, and her people to abandon their home, setting sail into the dark without even any hope of reaching a shore on its other side! It is not to be borne. It is not to be borne, and I _will not bear it_."

The sadness in his eyes terrifies her, and enrages her. "Bess," he says softly, and doesn't get any further.

"You showed it to me. You can tell me how it comes about, and what can stop it. Tell me!" She hears the note of pleading in her own voice, and that feeds both the fear and the rage.

"If it could be stopped, they would have stopped it." Still so _sad_ , as though he grieves for the future of her country even more than she. As though that were possible. "The flares are part of the sun's nature. Part of its life. The only thing to do was run. This ... all of this --" He waves an arm at the window, at the city and the country beyond it. "I couldn't save it, Bess. I never could have."

"Liar," she breathes, blinking back tears of fury. "Treacherous villain. And I had thought --"

"It isn't so bad," he tries to interrupt, raising his hands again as though to soothe her, taking another step towards her. "They do come back. You heard her say so --"

" _Liar!_ " This time she doesn't lower her voice when the walls ring; she raises it further. "Guards! _Guards!_ "

There comes the sound of heavy boots falling in the corridor outside, and the Doctor gives her a look of dread and reproach mingled together. "Oh, Bess...."

Her chin comes up, and she glares coldly at him. "You," she tells him in freezing tones, "may say _your Majesty_. For so long as you can still speak."

One last look at her as the door slams open, and he leaps for the TARDIS. The blue box starts to fade before the guards can seize it; she orders them to try anyway, hoping that somehow the Doctor will see them, hear them. Will know he is no longer welcome here.

 _Our marriage is annulled_ , she vows silently. _From this day forth you are my enemy._

It's years before she sees him again, but she doesn't forget.

* * *

  


_Happy Purim!_

 

  


**Author's Note:**

> All images are screencaps from the Doctor Who episode _The Beast Below_ , edited using ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5.


End file.
